


in media res

by bluewalk



Category: One Piece
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewalk/pseuds/bluewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of half-finished fics and scraps of fic and snippets of dialogue that I wrote years ago, back when I was first getting into One Piece. These are all orphaned fics, so please feel free to adopt them for your own and continue them!</p><p>01. sanji, usopp | g| post-enies lobby<br/>02. gin->sanji | pg | modern AU<br/>03. nami + the boys | g<br/>04. franky, sanji | g | post-apocalyptic AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sanji, usopp | g| post-enies lobby

It’s past four in the morning when Zoro and Usopp finally stumble back onto the ship, not enough discretion and far too much clamor. Zoro is conspicuously missing a boot and Usopp’s nose is bent at an impossible angle, and he is leaning heavily on Zoro. They are both dangerously unsteady on their feet, snickering to themselves as if they were getting away with something devilishly clever.

From the crow’s nest, Sanji peers down at them, breathes out soft as smoke.

“Oi!” he shouts, smoke-gravel voice harsh in the pre-dawn chill. “Rough night at the bar, I see.”

They freeze, Zoro’s shoulders rigid and Usopp’s foot raised in mid-step. A second later, Usopp loses his balance and crashes to the deck. Zoro snickers again, all pretense for silence thrown overboard. He looks up at the crow’s nest and Sanji can make out the brief flash of white, white teeth as Zoro smirks and says, as expected, “You should see the other guy.”

Usopp starts to giggle from where he is sprawled on the deck, and Zoro looks ridiculously proud, and Sanji laughs as well. What morons, Sanji thinks to himself, how uncool, and he smiles.

Zoro stretches, yawns so wide that Sanji can almost swear he hears Zoro’s jaw dislocate. “Take care of him, won’t you? ‘M going to sleep.”

“Yeah, just leave him there for now.”

Zoro nods and spares him a sleepy wave before lumbering off to the men’s quarters, his uneven gait the result of alcohol over-consumption exacerbated by missing footwear. Sanji shakes his head when he hears Zoro walk solidly into a door, twice. He takes his time with the rest of his cigarette, leans out the window of the crow’s nest and blows smoke rings around the full moon. Below him, he can hear Usopp start to snore, loud and persistent.

With a sigh, he stubs out the spent cigarette on the sole of his shoe, rubs his hands together in a vain attempt to warm them, and makes his way down to the deck.

Up close, Sanji can see the beginnings of what will be a very nasty black eye on Usopp’s face and dried blood from a busted lip that had thankfully stopped bleeding. Usopp’s hair is a hopeless, tangled mess, and it smells like he had inexplicably dunked his head in some very strong whiskey. Usopp is mumbling in his sleep, half-words and murmurs, and grinning like he is immensely pleased with himself.

Sanji can’t imagine why Usopp would be, when he is passed out on the deck like this, and he nudges Usopp’s cheek with the toe of his shoe. “Up and at ‘em, Longnose.”

Usopp swats at his foot with his hand, mumbles something unintelligible, stupid grin still plastered onto his face, eyes blissfully closed. Sanji nudges harder and Usopp grabs his shoe, and Sanji can make out the words, “—sign that for you—”

“I don’t want your fucking autograph,” Sanji says, slams his foot down hard on Usopp’s stomach, and when Usopp sits up coughing and spluttering and cursing, Sanji rolls his eyes and hauls Usopp to his feet.

“Don’t feel so good,” Usopp groans, swaying this way and that, sea legs lost, and he stumbles into Sanji. “Gonna throw up.”

Sanji pushes him. “Not on the lawn.”

Usopp urgently clamps his hands over his mouth and looks at Sanji imploringly.

“Not on me, either, or I’ll cook you, don’t think I won’t.”

The wide-eyed look Usopp gives him is a healthy mix of fear and desperation; Sanji finds that rather acceptable.

Not so acceptable is the way Usopp is puking his guts out two minutes later. Sanji has to hold back his hair as Usopp clutches the toilet bowl with the grip of the very, very distressed.

“Oh god,” Usopp sputters between heaves. “Oh god, why is this happening. I’ll never drink again,” he vows solemnly, and Sanji snorts, tightens his hold on Usopp’s hair as Usopp retches into the toilet bowl again.

“Oh god, I don’t want to—no more, make it stop—please—”

Sanji says, “Teach you not to drink so much next time.”

“But I’m a pirate.”

“Yeah, yeah. The dread pirate Usopp, I know.”

When Usopp whimpers, Sanji sighs and thumps him on the back. “Buck up, you shitty sniper. Small steps, right?”

“Right,” Usopp mutters, wipes at his mouth. “Tiny ones, to start with.”

“There we go.”

“Pretty sure alcohol poisoning is an occupational hazard for pirates or something, anyway. I read that somewhere.”

“Sure.”

“Sanji-kun?”

“What do you want.”

“Waffles.”

“All right, asshole. Waffles.”

—

Usopp likes his waffles like most people like their waffles: slathered with too much butter and swimming in a moat of sticky-sweet syrup. But instead of strawberries or blueberries on top, Usopp likes apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon, because apples are an autumn fruit, and Usopp has an autumn-fall taste, for cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

Sanji likes cinnamon, and he likes nutmeg and clove, and Sanji likes Usopp too, well enough and most of the time.

Even when Usopp is sitting at his table reeking of alcohol and vomit, getting syrup in his hair and, worse, on the tablecloth, shoveling forkfuls of warm waffle into his mouth and daring to make conversation as he chews.

Because Usopp never ever stops talking, even when he’s on the verge of collapsing face first onto his plate and drowning himself in syrup, coating the insides of his lungs with heavy sugar the way Sanji coats his with smoke.

Even when it’s almost certain he’s got a severe hangover in store for him after a night out on the town with marimo, which, according to Usopp’s babbling, food-spewing tale, had consisted of seventeen bars (rough estimate), eleven drinking contests (even rougher), five rounds of keg stands (likely not even one), and a dozen or so ruinous bar fights (Sanji allows him the glory of one, only because of the black eye and busted lip).

After reenacting, for Sanji’s sake, a particularly dramatic slow motion fly-through-the-air-with-slingshot-blazing finishing combo of assured destruction, Usopp drags himself up off the floor and plops down at the table, poignantly quiet.

Sanji makes a polite noise in the back of his throat, and Usopp nods once, solemnly.

And Sanji sits with Usopp, cigarette between his fingers, because it is late enough that it’s early, but not time to start breakfast yet, and he watches Usopp swirl his fork in the puddle of syrup on his plate. Slow motions, and the slightest screech of stainless steel against the china.

He almost misses it when Usopp says his name, looks up in the middle of Usopp calling for him a second time.

“What?”

“You tired?”

“Yeah, a bit. Haven’t slept yet.”

“Uh huh.” Usopp puts his fork down and drops his hands to his lap.

“What is it, Longnose?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing, there’s nothing, to say, at all.”

It’s not nothing, Sanji knows. You’d have to be a Luffy-grade idiot to miss the hunch of Usopp’s shoulders, the softness in Usopp’s voice that’s there all too often now after they’ve left Water 7. Sanji doesn’t know if Usopp’s kept Sogeking’s mask, and he wants to ask him, right now, in this moment, but Usopp doesn’t want to talk for once and Sanji won’t push it.

Sanji puts his cigarette out in the plate of leftover syrup. “Do the dishes then.”

“Later?’

“Now.”

“Ehhh? But Sanji-kun—”

“Am I going to have to repeat myself?”

“… No.”

—

He lets Usopp sleep in and miss breakfast, and only sends Luffy down to rouse him after lunch. He allows this to spare Usopp the chaos of a Strawhat morning feeding frenzy, because he knows Usopp’s head is probably about ready to split open after last night.

And that’s about the biggest concession Sanji will make, for anyone, ever.


	2. gin->sanji | pg | modern AU

Sanji really hates having to be a waiter.

He scowls to himself as he picks up a tray of delicate desserts and balances it on the flat of his palm. He spares the dishes a cursory glance and scoffs. Sloppy amateurs. He could do better with one hand tied behind his back and standing on one leg. Blindfolded. And asleep. He belongs in that fucking kitchen, and Zeff goddamn knows it.

And just because their wait staff are usually too intimidated to stick around for more than two weeks at a time, and just because the rest of the chefs at the Baratie are fucking butt-ugly and too brutish to take a customer’s order without making the ladies pass out and the men piss their pants—and just because he looked damn good in a suit and could be charming and could pour wine into a glass without sloshing it all over the place, and just because the sight of him didn’t make their patrons want to lose their lunch—didn’t  _mean_  that he had to be the goddamn waiter, not to mention the only one on the floor that evening. Fuck. That shitty old geezer was going to get an earful after closing.

He’s in an exceptionally foul mood tonight and is feeling completely unapologetic about it, because the dinner rush is brutal on Fridays and if he needs to smash a few heads in with the serving tray to get himself through the night, then damnit, that’s what he’ll do.

“Stop standing around like an idiot, eggplant.” Zeff gives him a pointed look, adjusting his toque so that it sits ramrod straight on his head. “And stop beating up the customers.”

“Fuck you, old man,” Sanji growls. “I hate you and this shitty place and all your shitty cooks and the shitty jackasses who eat here.”

“Not a big fan of you either, now get your ass out there before I put you on dish duty.”

“You can’t do that,” Sanji retorts. “Because then you’d have to send Patty or Carne out there and god knows the place is going to clear in three seconds flat if you do that.”

“Try me.” Zeff’s face is the face of someone who’s most definitely Not Kidding. Sanji decides not to risk it, because if there’s one thing he hates more than waiting, it’s dish duty. He picks up another tray, this one laden with chilled gazpacho, and exits the kitchen backwards, nudging the swinging doors open with his leg, cursing under his breath.

The evening drags on for way too long, and by the end of it, Sanji is bone-tired and hates his life and the ache in his feet, but mostly he hates the old man and the stupid pansy waiters who couldn’t stand up to a few kicks to the head and had jumped ship, and _most of all_ he hates not being allowed to smoke for stretches longer than thirty seconds. It wasn’t good for the world in general, and Sanji had learned that the hard way.

It’s been a hell of a lot longer than thirty seconds, and Sanji feels faint.

“Where do you think you’re going, brat?”

“Get off my back for fuck’s sake I fucking swear to god!” He knows he’s going to pay for that later, but damn it, all this fucking oxygen is making his head spin.

The night air in the alley behind the restaurant stinks of garbage and cat piss and a whole palate of really disagreeable things. He kicks a trash can over for the hell of it before pulling a pathetically crumpled cigarette from his pocket and placing it between his lips. This makes him feel marginally better. He fumbles for his lighter, doesn’t find it, and fights down the inexplicable urge to cry in frustration. He takes deep, calming breaths, but that only exacerbates the fact that there is still a distinct lack of nicotine entering his system, and he’s about to kick a hole through the brick wall when the back door bangs open. Zeff is standing in the doorway, seemingly unperturbed by the murderous expression on Sanji’s face.

“You look like you’re constipated,” Zeff remarks impassively. Then, “That punk’s here to see you. Again. Kindly tell him to fuck off.” And with that, he slams the door shut behind him, leaving Sanji to seethe alone in the alley.

“What the fuck!” Sanji screams at the door before wrenching it open again and storming through the kitchen on his way to the dining hall. The floor had just been mopped, so his shoes make the sort of squelchy, squeaky noise that Sanji hates and hates and  _hates_ , and as he passes Patty and Carne, he decides he hates Patty’s facial hair too, suddenly and with an undying passion, and he hates Carne’s dumb fucking glasses that are tinted for no fucking reason because they’re in a fucking kitchen so why the fuck do you need tinted fucking glasses in a fucking kitchen, get the fuck out of here, fuck, and he hates the way the two are watching him and snickering, the whole kitchen silent except for the squelching of his fucking shoes, and he’s going to pop a blood vessel right fucking

_squelch squelch squelch_

now.

And it is with this feeling of wanting to kick puppies and devour small children that he kicks open the kitchen doors and stomps into the dining hall, fists clenched and chest heaving in something very close to hyperventilation.

He spots his visitor, who is understandably gaping at him with a mixture of alarm, confusion and uncertainty on his face.

“What,” he nearly shrieks around his still unlit cigarette, “the fuck do you want, asshole?”

“Um,” says Gin, who’s beginning to look very concerned. “I was in the neighborhood and, uh.”

Sanji, with nerves frayed and breath coming short and a massive headache threatening to pop his eyeballs out, feels like he is going to cry again. So of course, the only logical thing for him to do is to kick Gin through the nearest table.

He does so.

Zeff sends him flying half a second later.

—

Sanji, though thoroughly bruised and bleeding from shallow cuts on his temple and above his right eye, is feeling a thousand, thousand times better. He’s sitting on the steps outside of the Baratie and smoking a cigarette and the nicotine makes his shitty life seem ok again. He inhales deeply, smiles, satisfied. Passers-by look at him, then look away quickly and hasten on. He feels absolutely no remorse about this, and grins wider.

Back inside the restaurant, Gin is sweeping up the splintered remains of two dining tables and a chair, keeping his eyes downcast, and very carefully not looking at Zeff, who still has a grudge against him, he knows, from that one time.

It’s not an easy thing to forget, Gin understands. The entire front half of the Baratie had been completely demolished and even repairs had to be delayed for a week as the cops sniffed around. Zeff did not appreciate cops, and he appreciated it even less when people other than his own gang of disreputable chefs brought the men in blue calling. And there was also the small matter of Gin trying to kill Sanji. (Although in the end, he didn’t, of course, and had really only slammed Sanji into a wall, into the floor, broken a few ribs, fractured his tibia, marginally missed smashing his skull open…) So it was only reasonable that Zeff should be wary about him hanging around his brat. Gin would be. In fact, if it were up to Gin now, he’d make sure that anyone who so much as brushed against Sanji the wrong way would no longer have the motor ability to even crawl into Sanji’s peripheral vision again.

But Gin knows that if Zeff didn’t see a spark of something-not-evil-but-I-didn’t-say-it-was-good in him, Gin would not be standing in the middle of the Baratie right this second, sweeping up the floor and then probably being forced to do dishes next.

For this, he is immensely grateful.

He’d have time to talk to Sanji later. Preferably after Sanji had smoked his way through a whole carton of cigarettes.

Yes, that would be better. He could wait.

—

He hasn’t known Sanji for that long. It’s been maybe two years or so since Sanji had first found him slumped over in the alley behind the Baratie, and everything that had happened since then. A lot had happened since then. Sanji had been nineteen.

They only saw each other once or twice a month, whenever Gin had time to stop by the restaurant to get kicked in the gut, or the face, depending on how Sanji’s mood was that day, and to eat whatever Sanji brought out and slammed on the table in front of him, muttering about his food being too good for Gin’s sorry ass and why Gin always chose the worse times to show up and goddamn he needed a cigarette.

Sanji always needs a cigarette.

He remembers three months ago, which was the second to last time they’d seen each other, they had been in Sanji’s apartment. He had missed Sanji at the Baratie, and Zeff had grudgingly told him the address after a rather intense bout of staring. Zeff had been holding a cleaver as he watched Gin scribble down the apartment number and street name, and before Gin had high-tailed it out of there, the corners of Zeff’s mouth suddenly twisted up into a smirk, and he had said, rather maliciously, “Good luck, kid.”

Gin should have taken that as a warning, should have wondered what Zeff meant, because Zeff sure as hell wasn’t wishing him luck getting into Sanji’s pants. But fuck, he hadn’t seen Sanji in almost half a year, and he didn’t care if Zeff meant that Sanji had grown two extra heads and scales and wings and was likely to devour him on sight; this was the first time in a long time he’s worked up enough nerve and banished enough guilt to see Sanji and he was going to, dragon or not.

Sanji had greeted him with his usual scowl, but didn’t deny him entry, and if Gin had waited a bit and had given Sanji a chance to do something other than close the front door after him, he might have found out what Zeff’s cryptic farewell had meant. But he didn’t.

Instead, Gin, not having quite come off the high of his last job for Krieg, had done something he never thought he would in a million lifetimes. It wasn’t so much that he was scared—he wasn’t—and it wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to—he did, badly—but rather, Sanji was the man who had saved his life after all, and you should respect the man you owe your life to—and Gin does, really—and you really shouldn’t press him against the wall like that and—kiss him. Like that. Especially not like that.

Two things had made themselves very apparent to Gin very quickly, and Gin knew he had done wrong.

Later, Gin had realized that he could conveniently blame these two things on one Roronoa Zoro.

The first: there had been a small, brown cat in the room and it was staring at Gin with huge, round, scandalized eyes. Gin was familiar with this cat. It was Roronoa’s cat. Its name was Flippy or Choppy, or something like that, and sometimes Roronoa would ask Sanji to look after it while he wandered off for days at a time doing god knows what. Probably slicing people up and being sliced up himself and bleeding all over public property. Swordsman stuff. Gin didn’t care. But Gin had not previously known that cats could emote with such deep and sorrowful intensity until the very second he had seen it gawking at him from a dark corner, and immediately he felt like a dirty old man for even standing in the same room as Sanji, forget kissing.

The second: Sanji had tasted sweet. Like candy. The still-functioning parts of Gin’s brain that had not defensively shut down to deal with his shame and the fact that he had just _kissed Sanji_ —he had kissed  _Sanji_ —struggled to make sense of this fact. It was so contrary to all of Gin’s expectations that it left him dumbfounded. Sanji should taste like tobacco and spices too fancy for Gin to name and maybe that one dessert Gin had had that one time at the Baratie when Sanji had been feeling magnanimous.

But Sanji had tasted like candy.

_Oh god_ , Gin had thought.  _Oh god, this is so fucking wrong._

“Oh god,” he had said out loud, when he pulled away.

Sanji had looked at him and then Gin knew it had  _really_ been a bad idea because Sanji’s expression was caught between confused and really pissed off, and he looked tired, the special kind of tired that made even Sanji look haggard and drawn, and that made Gin worry.

Then Sanji had shoved him away, muttering, “I need a fucking cigarette before I can even pretend to lookat your ugly mug,” and had stormed into the next room, where Gin could hear him throwing things around and slamming drawers before finally the clink of a lighter and then a long, deep inhale followed by a sigh that made Gin weak at the knees.

Gin had counted down the seconds until Sanji reappeared, cigarette in his mouth. Gin steeled his nerves and said, very bravely and with all due respect, “Candy?”

Sanji regarded him for a long, painful moment. “Yes, jackass,” he snapped at last. “I made a bet with another jackass who insisted I couldn’t quit smoking for a week without offing myself.” Sanji blew smoke into Gin’s face and Gin’s eyes watered. “And I’ve been sucking on lollipops and hard candies for  _four days_  trying not to vomit from all the fucking high fructose corn syrup in that shit or throw myself out a window or into the meat grinder, and then you just waltz right in after fuck knows how long and it all goes to shit. I hate you. God, I  _hate_  you. Thanks to you, that jackass is going to be  _right_ , and I’ll never hear the end of it. I need another cigarette.”

“Oh,” was all Gin could think to say. And then, because he meant it, “I’m glad you’re smoking again.”

Sanji had kicked him out then, and there was nothing Gin could do except curse Roronoa’s name.

The next time they had met, which was the last time, Sanji was smoking like a chimney again, and he didn’t look so tired anymore now that there was a healthy stream of nicotine in his system, and Gin was glad.

Sanji didn’t mention the kiss, so neither did Gin, and Sanji didn’t slam his food down with more contempt than was usual. It was like nothing had changed, so Gin tried to forget how Roronoa had inadvertently cock-blocked him that night. He had succeeded in feeling only a little despair.

After dinner that time, Gin had followed Sanji home with Zeff’s eyes boring into his back, and they spent the night watching bad sci-fi movies and drinking too much and sharing cigarettes because Gin only smoked with Sanji, and when Sanji passed out around five in the morning, Gin wasn’t surprised—it was practically custom. He had stumbled around for his shoes and left as quietly as he could.

Roronoa’s cat watched him leave.

—

“Krieg know you’re here?”

Gin carefully rinses the last plate and he shakes his head no. He doesn’t look at Sanji because Sanji is making a sound like he’s annoyed or exasperated, and Gin’s learned it’s best not to make eye contact when Sanji is annoyed or exasperated.

And especially not when they are talking about Krieg.

When Gin had failed to kill Sanji, Krieg had beat him within an inch of his life and Gin had let him. He doesn’t hold that against Krieg, not the beating him within an inch of his life bit. Truthfully, Gin doesn’t really mind the business he’s in, not the jobs that Krieg sends him to do. He’s good at it, and the pay is really more than incentive enough. But then Sanji had happened and everything stopped making sense. And now Gin finds himself hating how Krieg had tried to destroy the Baratie even after Zeff had fed their starving asses and had hid them as fugitives from that asshole Fullbody. Krieg probably would have succeeded in taking the Baratie down too, if that weird kid Luffy hadn’t shown up. Gin’s never thought twice about Krieg’s foul play, but now Gin’s hands clench into fists when he remembers, and when he remembers how Sanji kept getting back up after Gin had slammed him down over and over, he feels sick.

He hates himself, but he hates Krieg more, but then he hates himself even more for still being unquestioningly loyal to him, for not leaving like Sanji had insisted. He doesn’t know how to just—stop. Or maybe he gets off on people telling him what to do, fuck, he doesn’t know.

When Sanji growls at him to hurry the fuck up, he grabs his jacket and goes to meet him at the door. Zeff lets him go with a huff.

Gin knows they are going to get shit-faced again tonight—at least, Sanji will, and Gin will try to keep up but he’ll just end up watching instead and keeping his hands to himself. Like always. The usual.

Sanji’s liquor supply is impressively well-stocked. Gin asked why once and Sanji had told him that sometimes, something called a marimo liked to show up half-dead on his doorstep asking for rum or some shit, and Sanji would be a pretty shitty cook if he couldn’t even offer someone a proper drink.

Gin hadn’t liked the answer.

But he likes alcohol and he likes Sanji, and there is no marimo  _or_ cats of marimo around tonight, so it’s surprisingly ok.

—

Gin doesn’t often dream.

He’s not an imaginative kind of guy, either, so when he does dream, it’s usually just memories replaying in his head without his permission.

That night, he dreams of the day that Krieg had trooped his men in front of the Baratie, armed and ready, like they were in some kind of 1920s hardboiled crime-fiction or  _The Godfather_ or some shit like that. Krieg was one for dramatics, intimidation, and Krieg had the charisma to pull that sort of thing off.

It was Gin’s fault, when it came down to it. He was the one who brought Krieg to the Baratie in the first place, knowing they’d help, and he should have known better than that, should have known what kind of man Krieg was.

And Krieg was this kind of man. After Zeff had saved their lives, had  _fed_  them at his own table, hid them from the cops (Zeff knows what it’s like to be on the wrong side of the law), Krieg had put his dirty boots up, grinned that grin of his, and had declared the Baratie under his “protection.”

He expected Zeff to pay and, of course, Zeff had flat-out refused. What did the Baratie chefs need from Krieg that they couldn’t manage on their own?

Then, the dream flashes forward in the way that dreams do, and Gin is standing over Sanji as Sanji spits up blood on his shoes. Sanji isn’t giving up. Sanji is going to die. Sanji stands.

And Gin can’t do it. Sanji blows smoke out of the corner of his mouth and watches him.

Gin feels his stomach tighten as he lunges again.

Then, he sees the unconscious bodies of Krieg’s men strewn about the rubble after that kid Luffy had run his course. Pearl, huge and blubbering, is cowering in a corner and staring at Gin with something greater than fear in his eyes. Good, Gin thinks vaguely. Don’t you dare touch—

Gin feels his head spin.

Then, he is throwing Krieg’s limp body over his shoulder, and he can hear sirens approaching, loud and persistent. He’s weak, he’s in bad shape, but he has to go, needs to get Krieg out of here.

_Through the kitchen_ , a voice rasps.

Gin turns and there’s Sanji on the floor, slumped against an overturned table, a hand pressed to his side. There’s blood in his mouth, bruises and broken bones all over, and his eyes are hooded as he looks straight at Gin. Gin feels his entire body go cold. He’s about to say Sanji’s name, but Sanji says,  _Get the fuck out of here, shithead._

_If I ever see you here again, I’ll kick your ass._  Sanji flips him off, but he’s smiling a little, teeth stained red.

And Gin leaves, picking his way through the rubble, Krieg a dead weight dragging him down, threatening to buckle his knees. He runs for a long time, weaving through alleyways to shake off their pursuers. He feels hungry.

Oh. He remembers this part. This is the part when his legs finally give out, and he pitches forward, pavement rushing up to meet him—

It’s afternoon already, and Gin’s shoulder is sore from sleeping on the cold, hard floor all night. Where is he again? Oh, right. He can barely recognize the place lit up with sun instead of the dim glow of lamps. He looks around, at the mess of bottles and glasses and an ashtray overflowing, but Sanji isn’t there. Sanji is—

—throwing up in the bathroom. Gin can hear him puking his guts out from the living room, and it sounds very impressive, sounds like Sanji is going to be in a really bad mood.

“Fuuuuck,” he hears Sanji groan. “Jesus fucking Christ.” The toilet flushes.

Gin walks in to see Sanji splashing his face with water from the sink. “Hey.”

Sanji’s eye, the one not hidden behind a fall of hair, is red and bleary when he looks up at Gin’s reflection in the mirror. He shakes his head and mutters, “First face I see when I wake up and it’s yours, fuck, my life is shit.”

“Sorry,” says Gin, because he sort of is. “I’ll—”

Sanji holds up a hand, signaling that he wants Gin to shut the hell up.

Gin has never encountered a hung-over Sanji before. Drunk Sanji, nicotine-deprived Sanji, yes. Sanji when he’s pissed off, exceedingly often. Sanji when he’s happy, once in a very, very long while. Sanji when he’s hung-over, though, is new, because although Sanji seems determined to destroy his liver every time Gin is around, Gin has never actually been around to see the aftermath of these ventures in the morning.

“Do you want a smoke?” Gin offers, because there’s nothing else.

The look on Sanji’s face makes Gin blink, and when Sanji nods slowly, Gin says, “Ok,” and goes to get the pack from the living room. He doesn’t expect Sanji to follow him, but Sanji does, and Sanji flops down on the couch and groans into his hands.

“Here.” Gin holds out a cigarette and Sanji takes it, looks at Gin expectantly. Gin looks back.

“God, you’re stupid.” Sanji glowers. “It’s not going to light itself, dumbass.”

“Right.” Gin finds the lighter nestled between two empty bottles and holds it up for Sanji as Sanji leans in, breathes in, his hair almost brushing Gin’s fingers. When he leans back, the end of the cigarette is glowing ember red.

Sanji grumbles something, rubs at his eyes. He looks up at Gin, and he says, “You’re still here.”

Gin doesn’t know what to say to this, but then again, Gin rarely knows what to say to Sanji. He tries anyway, because Sanji expects him to. “Yeah.” He glances down at the lighter still in his hand, then back to Sanji. “I wanted to.” And he did, and does.

“You’re usually fucking gone by now.” Sanji is frowning, and there’s an edge to his voice. “What about Krieg?”

“What about him?” Gin asks, careful to keep his face blank.

“Isn’t it time for you to run back to him now?”

Gin feels behind him for the coffee table and sits down on the edge of it so that he’s eye level with Sanji, but he doesn’t look at him, not really. “Yeah.”

“God, you’re always so fucking stupid,” Sanji sighs.

Then he gets up to make breakfast and Gin doesn’t know what to think when he hears him cursing and stomping around the kitchen, so he just sits there and plays with the lighter and listens. He smells bacon and eggs and pancakes and hash browns, and then Sanji calls him to get his ass in here or so help him god. Gin’s stomach growls as he makes his way to the kitchen to face Sanji’s inevitable wrath.

Sanji thumps the heaping plate on the table with a finality that makes Gin immediately take a seat and pick up a fork. A cup of coffee, black, is shoved at him. Then Sanji leans against the counter and smokes at him with such sullen menace that Gin quickly shoves a few bites into his mouth.

“It’s good,” he says but only after he swallows, because Sanji’s kicked some manners into him before.

“Of course it is, fucker.” Sanji smokes and smokes and smokes and glares.

“You’re not going to have any?”

 “No.”

Gin realizes he’s never actually seen Sanji eat before, and that Sanji’s really skinny for a cook. There must be a law somewhere against cooks being skinny, Gin’s pretty sure. “Why not?”

“Because the sight of you makes me lose my appetite, that’s why,” Sanji grounds out, throws the butt of the cigarette into the sink, where it sizzles. Sanji’s expression is still dangerously dark.

And if Sanji were anyone but Sanji, Gin would have punched his lights out long ago for talking to him like that. But Sanji is Sanji, so Gin is instead trying very hard to understand why Sanji is always so angry. It’s important to know things like this for his brain’s rapidly expanding Sanji Manual. So when Sanji growls at him to wash the dishes after he’s done eating, Gin only shrugs and says, “Sure.”

Sanji leaves to shower and change for work, and Gin does the dishes, careful not to scratch the pan as he scrubs, because Sanji would have his head for that. When Sanji comes back, his hair is damp, but his shirt and slacks are immaculately pressed and he’s lighting a fresh cigarette. He scowls at Gin and at his clean kitchen.

Then, as if he’d rather die, Sanji asks, “You gonna stick around this time, shithead?”

And Gin really, really doesn’t have an answer for that, couldn’t have an answer for that, because he’s never dared to dwell on it for more than half a second at a time, because there is Krieg and there was Sanji, broken and bleeding, but with strength enough and hatred enough to glare up the barrel of the gun at Gin, who could already feel something inside him crumble that day. But there is still Krieg, and there is always Krieg.

But Sanji’s snarling at him like he’s going to kill him if he says the wrong thing, and that, Gin realizes with a jolt, means something.

“Sure,” says Gin, fingertips all wrinkly from the washing, the kitchen counter solid at his back and Sanji immovable before him. “Yeah.”

And Sanji swallows smoke like it’s air. “Fine.” He doesn’t look happy, but that’s normal. “Fine,” he says again, and he half-turns as if to leave, hesitates and stops. “What’re you going to do now?” And if Gin didn’t know any better, he’d say Sanji sounded worried.

“I don’t know,” Gin answers honestly. “But I’ll come by again tonight when you’re off?”

That seems to be acceptable, because Sanji only shrugs and doesn’t throw any more insults at him as he pulls on his coat and shoes in silence. Gin walks out with him, turning left at the corner when Sanji turns right, and when Gin says, “See you later, Sanji,” it’s the first farewell ever said aloud between them.

Sanji mutters something around his cigarette, gives Gin a sidelong glance, and stalks away, smoke trailing behind him.

The smell of it clings to Gin all day.

—

Gin knows that Krieg will never be quite the same, having never tasted defeat before, and especially not a defeat as devastating and humiliating as the one at the Baratie. Gin also knows that, under normal circumstances, Krieg wouldn’t have stayed down, would have pulled out all the stops and tricks up his sleeves until he got his way and the Baratie was reduced to nothing but smoking debris.

But that kid Luffy, he’s a force of nature in his own right, but what scares Krieg even more is the kid’s grandfather, a powerful man in all the right circles and whose infamous ferocity is matched only by his love for his grandson, and not even Krieg is bold enough to challenge someone like that.

So Gin knows the Baratie is safe, and he knows Sanji is too, because Luffy likes Sanji, which makes Sanji pretty much untouchable around these parts.

But Krieg knows that Gin knows, and Krieg can’t stand that Gin’s won something when he’s lost everything, and he doesn’t let Gin forget his betrayal, makes Gin work to prove his loyalty again though there isn’t any doubt even now, and Gin does everything he’s told, without hesitation, and he calls Krieg “boss” like he always did.

He knows it’s messed up, knows there’s definitely something wrong with him, but Gin keeps breaking arms and busting kneecaps and blasting heads off, because Krieg commands it and he can’t seem to stop.

He doesn’t think of Sanji when he’s on a job, only of Krieg and what Krieg wants and the adrenaline in his blood.

It’s only afterwards, the night falling silent again with the thud of a body hitting the ground, that he thinks of Sanji, and wonders whether or not Sanji would still be awake, or whether he would forgive Gin for showing up covered in blood, whether he’d greet Gin with a smile or a scowl this time, after all these nights.

He always craves cigarettes, after.

—

And he does go back that night. And the night after that, and the night after that. When his work runs late and it’s some ungodly hour in the morning, he’ll go anyway, and Sanji will let him in and curse him out in a half-hearted, groggy sort of way while making tea, and when he hands the mug to Gin, his hands will still be warm from sleep, and after Gin takes that first sip, Sanji will trudge back to bed with a drowsy promise to kick Gin’s ass properly in the morning.

Sanji’s had a copy of the keys made after the first week and a half, figuring it’s about time Gin stopped dragging Sanji out of bed to open the door for him at all hours of the night, but then he remembers how useless Gin is, how he probably couldn’t make a proper cup of tea if his life depended on it, would probably wreck half of Sanji’s kitchen just trying to boil water—so yeah, it’s better that Sanji hang onto the keys and just suffer his sleep being interrupted, because really, Gin is absolutely useless except for getting blood all over himself, that stupid  _stupid_ idiot, what the hell do you do to yourself, better not find you dead on my couch in the morning.

It goes on like this, and Gin spends almost every night on Sanji’s couch and Sanji spends less and less time drinking himself into a stupor in Gin’s presence.

One night, Sanji takes the cigarette from between his lips, dangles it from between his fingers, and asks, “So how many men have you killed?”

And Gin answers, “I don’t know. A lot.”

“How many is a lot?”

“As many as Krieg has ordered.” Gin thinks for a moment. “Minus one.”

“And if.” Sanji stops, his mouth a grim line across his face. “If I said I needed you to—”

“Yeah,” Gin says, simply. “I would.”

Sanji looks away from him. “I  _wouldn’t_  need you to,” he says hastily.

“I know.”

“I wouldn’t tell you to.”

“I know,” says Gin, and he does.

That matters more than the world, the fact that Sanji would never ask him for anything. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Sanji put the cigarette back between his lips and sink deeper into the couch next to him, warm.


	3. nami + the boys | g

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> someone has to keep the crew trimmed and groomed

Luffy’s hair is always wild and windswept, so tangled that she has trouble extracting her fingers from the mess of knots and tangles. Sometimes she finds bits of food in there, and once, even a hundred belli note, which she had calmly pocketed before smacking him and demanding to know just where he was sticking his head and would it hurt to wash every once in a while. 

She charges him exorbitant sums of money that she knows he’s never, ever going to pay back, because this is Luffy and because she won’t hold him to it. Because how much is freedom worth, the sea opening up before her endless and blue, and a home, and warmth that lulls her to sleep, and her own seat at a table heavy with love and eagerly mapped dreams? More than one hundred million belli. More than she could ever pay back. 

Luffy has given her the world, slipped it onto her wrist like a log pose; she can give him a free haircut now and then.

—

Zoro’s hair is a marvel in and of itself, a vibrant, impossible green. Nowhere near as coarse as she first imagined it to be, but not exactly fine either. He always sleeps through his haircut, leaning a bit to the side, but with arms resolutely crossed, as if he were determined to suffer through the ordeal with all the dignity a snoring man could muster.

But once afterwards, he had yawned and looked at the green trimmings on the deck and told her that his grandmother used to scatter the strands in their backyard, so that birds could use them to build nests for their young. 

She had commented, funny-looking nests they must have been, if they used your hair.

And Zoro had barked a laugh and said, yeah, must have been. 

There are no birds out at sea, at least none that have need of nests and strange green strands of sheared-off hair, but Nami scatters them to the wind anyway, because mothers always know best and if Zoro remembers, it must be worth something.

—

Usopp’s hair is thick and curly and black as ink, surprisingly soft, slipping over her fingers. He doesn’t shut up, even when she is wielding scissors so close to his very vital jugular, only talks faster, more nervously. It’s only when she gathers his hair in her hand, tugs hard and glides the scissors across that he falls silent, eyes squeezed shut and fists clenched tight in his lap.

I wasn’t going to hurt you, she says, and he laughs timidly, as if he doesn’t believe her.

Because we’re nakama, he says, voice rising at the end.

Because you’re useful to have around. And even if you weren’t. Well. Yes, nakama.

You’d keep me around still?

Nami hands the scissors to Usopp, blades cool in her fist, the handles towards him. He takes them from her hesitantly.

Show me again how you make those cut-out paper seakings?

Oh, he says, beaming. Yeah, Luffy will love those. Come on.

—

Sanji’s hair is sleek shine, but she wouldn’t call it gold—a canary yellow, maybe, or bright bumblebee. But when Sanji’s hair is wet, it is the color of the warm honey he drizzles on top of their morning scones, sweeter and subdued, much more palatable. And for all his squirming and wriggling whenever she is within a half-mile radius, he is always perfectly still when she sits him in the chair, drapes an old tablecloth over his narrow shoulders.

His knees set shoulder-width apart, cigarette in one trailing hand, face turned up towards the sun.

That’s the first thing we learn in the North, he told her once. We learn to follow the sun. It’s cold up there, see.

He closes his eyes, and Nami touches her fingertips to his eyelids before she begins. The sunlight makes his grin blaze white-hot, and she can’t imagine him being cold, because she thinks that he must be the warmest person she knows.


	4. franky, sanji | g | post-apocalyptic AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-apocalyptic AU in which Franky is not and has never been a shipwright

Franky is young. He was young when his parents left him on the back steps of a crumbling urban edifice, their eyes shot through with red and their teeth bared in angry resignation. He is still young now, because although years have passed since his father snatched his trembling hands away and dissolved into the night, Franky has not forgotten the static surge that used to calm him between his parents’ fever-hot bodies. Different from the dead static of the radios, which is prickly and unpleasant in his ears—no, it was a rushing, shushing, sweeping sound that pulled at him and pulled and pulled until he finally understood longing. It was a blooming pain in his chest, at the spot where his mother often pressed her hand, when they were still together.

But young as Franky was and is, the boy who lives across the street in another burned-out husk of a building is even younger. Eight, maybe ten years old. A scrappy little brat with his hair over one eye and funny, swirly eyebrows. The boy’s guardian is a mountain of a man, almost as big as Tom, Franky presumes, but he has no real way of comparison because Tom has been gone for months. Taken away in the night by tall figures in gas masks, their speech harsh and garbled.

Iceberg told him to run after that and now Franky lives alone on this abandoned block with the boy and his guardian. The boy brings him food sometimes and glares at him with his lips pressed together and arms crossed until Franky gives in and eats. Franky can’t help but feel guilty, because he knows food is scarce and the boy is so thin.

Tom’s blueprints are always with him, rolled up tight and snug in his boots. He takes them out when the boy comes over one day, to show him this wonder Tom had called a ship. He asks the boy if he’s ever seen one and the boy shakes his head no, eyes wide. He asks the boy if he knows what the sea sounds like. 

“No,” the boy says. “But I hear it’s blue.”

Franky laughs. The sea hasn’t been blue for decades. Tom had said so, and Franky had glimpsed it for himself. But he lets the boy believe that because there is not much else to hold onto these days and Franky wants it to be true. 

“We’ll go one day,” Franky finds himself offering. “So you can listen to the waves.”

The boy doesn’t look at him and Franky almost slaps himself. He remembers too late why he never sees the boy’s guardian outside, why the boy is always scampering over the rubble of the city by himself.

“Aw, never mind,” Franky whispers, and nudges the boy with his elbow. “Not much to see, anyway. Not really.”

“I do want to go,” the boy says to his feet. Guilt crosses his face and he quickly adds, “Just because—the old man talks about it too. A lot. What does the sea sound like?”

“Loud,” Franky explains ineffectually. His vocabulary is too stunted to describe it any other way. His world has only ever been monotone and monochromatic, except for the sea. “Loud and… it makes you feel something, right here. 

He taps the boy’s chest and to his surprise, the boy nods. 

“Zeff calls it homesickness.”

“Yeah? What’s that feel like?”

The boy shrugs and looks embarrassed. “I don’t know. Sad?”

“You feel that way too?”

“Sometimes,” the boy admits.

“Me too,” Franky says. “Sad. Like missing someone.”

He rolls up Tom’s blueprints and slips them back in his boot. His boots are looser around his calves than they used to be. He’s been losing weight. The boy watches him out of the corner of his eye and they sit together in silence until Franky can’t take it anymore. There’s a swelling in his chest that he doesn’t know how to relieve. He wants something that he’s not sure exists anymore; there’s only static on the radio now. 

He goes to the window and draws back the tattered, ashy curtains to let in the light. The sky is yellow with dust and old pollution, but it’s the only one they’ve ever known.

“I should go back,” the boy says, and Franky thinks it’s a miracle that any of them have survived for so long. He doesn’t want for it to be a waste.

“I’ll build something for your old man,” Franky decides suddenly, his heart thumping hard. “Something with wheels. Then he can go too.”

The boy stands in the doorway and stares at him, his knuckles white around the doorframe.

It’s a reckless promise. Franky hasn’t built anything since he ran away, and even with Iceberg, all they had built were coffins, simple wooden boxes that were sometimes heartbreakingly small. But he wants the kid to hear the sea. He knows that’s where he belongs, and in a better world, that’s where they’d be. On a ship, like the one in Tom’s blueprints, like the ones in the stories people used to tell, before they all fell mute with despair and disease. White sails full of wind and clear, blue water. And maybe all Franky can do is bring them to the edge of that world long gone, but that’s one step closer and that’s enough to fight for. 

“Sound good?”

The boy ducks his head. “I don’t know,” he mumbles, but Franky catches the smile on the boy’s young, tired face and the swelling in Franky’s chest grows. He feels as if he could sing, though he doesn’t know any songs. He could make one up. Words to go with the hum in his throat. He could. Maybe he doesn’t need the radio. 

“Super,” Franky says, grinning. “Leave it to me.”

The sunlight is cold and fading and the street outside is barren, but at night, Franky can see faraway lights blinking from dark windows. There are others like them out there, homesick and longing for something they never knew, but Franky thinks they could find the answers by the sea, with the sound of its waves that pulled and pulled at you. It’s time they went.


End file.
